Author Archive: Peter Webb
I left a good job in the consumer technology industry to go a trade on Betfair for a living way back in June 2000.
I've been here ever since pushing very boundaries of what's possible on betting exchanges and loved every minute of it.
Champions League Final stats
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
Real Madrid will look to claim the elusive ‘Decima’ on Saturday night when they face city rivals Atletico in Lisbon. Xabi Alonso is suspended for Real with Asier Illarramendi expected to deputise and Isco on standby to play if Karim Benzema or Cristiano Ronaldo are not fit to start. Atletico, meanwhile, have …
Slacking
I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog and video front this week, but it’s not through want. It’s just been a very busy week. Even after 14 years I still get excited and motivated by getting stuck into the markets. My desire to solve problems and push forward is always at the front of my mind. Everything else can take a back seat when the desire is at its strongest.
I welcomed another group of people to the office …
FA Cup Fi-nil, Some interesting statistics
So the FA Cup final is upon us and, rather predictably, the final has delivered us two premiership teams. But what will the match deliver, is that going to be as predictable as well? I’ve delved back over a number of years to see if I can unlock some prevailing trends.
At first hand you can see that the final looks uncompetitive, Arsenal are heavy favourites to lift the cup. But as history has shown us, the FA Cup is …
York Dante meeting
After a successful Chester meeting last week we roll onto York for the Dante meeting this week.
The York card looks good, but the other stuff on the card is a bit testing’. I’ve never managed to consistently pull out any massive totals from this York meeting in the past, but today has got off to a good start so maybe this is the year!
As we move through the early part of the flat turf season the early part …
Premier League Final Day Stats – last 15 years
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
Premier League Final Day Stats – last 15 years
- Backing every home team would have given a +6.2% profit over the 150 matches
- There have been 34 matches where the home side has been a 2.0-2.5 favourite (Sunderland, West Brom) with those teams winning 56% of matches and the games averaging 3.18
Eurovision
Even if you are not watching it, you should take a look at Eurovision this evening. It’s caught my eye this year as a competitive contest with several interesting dynamics as a market. I’m out on the town this evening, so I’ve no chance to trade it unfortunately; but I’ll gather data.
I’ve done well in the past by backing outsiders that shorten during the contest and early voting patterns can often give you clear hints to the eventual outcome. …
Chester May Festival
Chester May festival starts today and it’s a welcome addition to the card, but based upon previous years it’s nothing amazing from a trading viewpoint.
Obviously we all love some extra liquidity that the quality racing will bring, but it’s never been a meeting that I’ve got really good amounts from. By that I mean I’m not banging in three figure results a race. Just the odd one or two a day. The thing to note about Chester is its …
May Bank Holiday isn’t all about sports
May bank holiday doesn’t actually scream trading on sports markets for me. It pulls me in a different direction….
Long before I started trading on sports markets I spent a lot of time and effort on financial markets and that eventually led me to the Berkshire Hathaway AGM in Omaha Nebraska.
Until I got too busy on sports markets; the first weekend in May, the Bank Holiday weekend, was traditionally the time I would hop over to the US to …
Win by backing the loser
An unusual strategy but one I documented in this recent post on the Betfair web site.
The dutching in Bet Angel contains a neat feature called the ‘margin maker’. This allows you to create a book with one price offset to a nominated value. This is useful for risk management when deploying a strategy in a market where you have some idea where the odds will go. Whether this is the time value in a football match or the price …
Weekend Soccer Stats
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
Newcastle v Cardiff
- 8 of Newcastle’s last 10 home games against bottom-six teams have had at least 3 goals
- Newcastle have lost 5 of their last 8 home matches against bottom-six teams
- Cardiff have drawn the first half in 9 of their last 16 away matches
Stoke v Fulham
- Stoke have picked
Estimating correct score odds
In this video I discuss a simplistic approach to estimating correct score odds by deriving them from the match odds markets. You can do this automatically in Bet Angel. There are several layers and depths you can get to with pricing models and this is a fairly simple ‘top level’ model that is easy to understand but is not particularly refined.
For clarity I’ve also included a market where this model is not appropriate and where you should use a …
Saturday Soccer Stats
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
Premier League: Liverpool v Chelsea
Liverpool have won 11 consecutive matches to take a commanding lead in the title race. With Chelsea’s chances having been all but finished last weekend with defeat to Sunderland they are now expected to rest several players ahead of next week’s Champions League second leg.
However, Chelsea’s …
Backing Liverpool
Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn’t in. But Liverpool are now into 1.19 for the title, but a controversial title awaits perhaps?
After their 0-0 draw with Athletico this week in the champions league, Chelsea are preparing for the real prospect of another champions league final. But this it seemingly going to have an effect on the title race also.
Mourinho has threatened to field a much weakened team against Liverpool, effectively handing them the title. Liverpool’s price has shortened …
Easter Bank Holiday Monday
You would think that perhaps lots of racing would be a blessing, but on day’s like this it’s a curse. I forgive racing for wanting to put on a show for punters, but it’s a mare for us on the other side. Just too much racing!
There are 705 runners today over 67 races, an average of 10 runners per race. If all races start on time, then there will be 24 clashes today. If races start on their average …
Profits and (losses)
Last week I got a few comments about P&L’s I’d posted up; this is quite common.
I was asked more than once, what stake did you use to achieve that? But there are so many ways to answer that question. You could have a hundred different answers depending on how you trade. If you don’t understand this answer, have a deep think about it.
A debate also broke out on the forum about posting winners and losers. My view on …
Racing makes history… and annoys families
So Racing has broken that taboo and Racing goes ahead on a Good Friday. Hmm, just got used to having the day off and so had the kids and suddenly I’m looking at trading instead of spending time with the family. No in fact, I’m not going to. I’ll switch on some automation and let it work (it’s magic?).
I understand Racing’s desire to be more appealing but this was one day, of few, of the year where I could …
Craving Craven
I prefer to know whether I’m in a good market or a poor one, but the Craven often sits in-between that. I know there’s quality there, but in terms of liquidity it often hasn’t delivered in the past and as a betting heat it doesn’t have the same importance as other nearby events. But it is better than the dross that’s often between Cheltenham and the Grand National though, it has to be said!
Winter is generally pretty tough and …
Title decider
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
No two ways about it this is the match that will most likely decide where the title will go. If City drop two points then it’s Liverpool’s to lose. If City win then Liverpool will find it very hard to make up ground. Should be a cracking match. I’m going to give …
Augusta, the cut
This has turned out to be a good Masters and a decent start to the season. I’m on target to get my best ever result on a Golf tournament.
Positive movers to the cut, to £10 stakes
Start to cut – Bubba Watson – 30 to 3 – £90 : High to cut – £256.67
Start to cut – Adam Scott – 13 to 6 – £11.67 : High to cut – £28.33
Start to cut – Jordan Spieth – …
Trading Golf markets on Betfair
If you want detailed Golf stats check out this site which I have been using to dissect Golf tournaments in more detail.
My first ever bet on Betfair back in June 2000 was actually on Golf, curiously. But back then it wasn’t a trading strategy that made me place that bet. Years later, Golf is now a regular part of my trading mix and the US Masters is my first chance of the year to really go for it.
I’ve …
Time to make a mess of the Garden – The US Masters
If you want more Golf stats check out this site which I have been using to dissect Golf tournaments in more detail.
We are at the first major of the year. I’m already active in the Masters market trying to establish a position before the first player tees off.
I like the US masters, because it’s the only major played on the same course each year. This means you can collect a ton of stats on how the course plays. …
Betfair re-launch in Italy (Sort of)
Betfair trumpeted the launch of the Italian exchange this morning. But they were the only ones celebrating as the markets in Italy resembled something of a ghost town and liquidity a piece of tumble weed blowing through it. A stark comparison to the betfair.com markets (see below).
Legislation permits that the exchange only be populated with Italian customers. So Betfair have closed all betfair.com accounts and moved them them to the ‘ringfenced’ Italian exchange. But I’d imagine most large …
Trading the Premier League title run-in
With West Ham vs Liverpool on the agenda this afternoon I thought I would have a close look at the premier leagues remaining matches and how they will affect the run in for the title. View the video to see how I’m looking to do this.
Saturday Soccer Stats
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
Aston Villa v Fulham
- Aston Villa have just the 18th best home record this season – last term they had the 17th best
- Since 2008/09, 8 of the 9 meetings between these sides have had fewer than 3 goals
- Fulham have lost the 2nd half in 10 of their
Aintree Grand National meeting
I’ve prepared a couple of videos for you to do with the Grand National meeting, see below. To get videos as they are released click on this link.
This is a curious meeting for me each year. It’s not on the scale of some of the really large meetings, but is still a decent meeting in it’s own right. The problem I have here is that I never seem to pull off anything spectacular from it. On a race …
Paris St-G vs Mourinho
Some clever mind games going on this week by the Chelsea manager in preparation for this match. From a market perspective it’s basically two evenly matched teams with Paris having home advantage. My guess is that Chelsea will be keen to keen the goal tally against as low as possible so I suspect a defensive approach given their ‘lack of a striker’.
The stats reflect what I’ve said above, so a difficult call really.
Paris St-G vs. Chelsea
We looked …
Mission impossible for Man Utd?
An intriguing tie at Old Trafford and one that Man Utd can’t afford to lose. You would expect that United must win by two to stand any chance of qualifying with the return leg still to come. ‘Dir Roten’ will be well aware of that and I suspect they will be happy to sit back and wait for Utd to make a mistake at first. An away goal would make it incredibly hard for United to qualify so I reckon …
The risk meter – A hidden gem
Bet Angel contains a near little feature hidden away in the market overview screen, it’s called the risk meter.
If you trade on horse racing then this handy little tool will allow you to measure what a market feels like. This means you can adapt your trading style according to this measure. Some markets suit certain styles and others don’t. So using the risk meter will give you a better assessment on how the market feels and what to do …
Saturday Soccer Stats
These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments.
Crystal Palace v Chelsea
- Palace have picked up just 1 point from 14 games against the top 9 this season and they’ve scored just 2 goals in the process
- 9 of Palace’s last 11 home matches have had fewer than 3 goals
- 7 of Chelsea’s last 9 wins have been by at
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